Six quick steps:

1. Pull up the official inmate lookup.
2. When a state menu pops up, choose South Carolina.
3. Put in the family name alone at first. Narrow it with a given name if the list runs long.
4. Check that the age fits your person. Common surnames around Varnville and Estill can bring up strangers.
5. Read the custody line: held, let go or transferred.
6. Still unsure? Ring the Detention Center at 803-914-2223 and spell the full legal name.

Officers on the desk can say yes or no about custody. Questions about the evidence belong with a defense lawyer.

Coming up blank in the early hours happens a lot. Common reasons:

• Intake is still going. Fingerprints, a photo and health questions come before anything shows up. Look again that evening.
• The spelling is off. Retry with the middle name, the birth surname, or the nickname folks in town use.
• Bond came through already. The judge sits daily, so plenty of people walk out within a day.
• A different agency has them. Troopers or federal agents sometimes carry people to another county or to Charleston.

Your next call goes to whoever did the arresting. For deputies, that is the Sheriff's Office at the Law Enforcement Center, 411 Cemetery Road, Varnville, SC 29944, 803-914-2200. Ask for Records. Town police numbers sit in the final answer below, and the answer after this one lists neighbor jails.

The county keeps just one adult lockup: the Detention Center at 409 Cemetery Road, Varnville, SC 29944, 803-914-2223. County pages name no annex, work camp or work release center. The Sheriff's building next door, the Law Enforcement Center at 411 Cemetery Road, Varnville, SC 29944, has offices only.

Picked up in Ridgeland, Bamberg or Walterboro, or wanted on another county's paper? Then check these jails:

• Jasper County Detention Center, 12008 North Jacob Smart Blvd, Ridgeland, SC 29936, 843-717-3300.
• Bamberg County Detention Center, 444 Second Street, Bamberg, SC 29003, 803-245-3020.
• Colleton County Detention Center, with its public lobby at 22 Klein St., Walterboro, SC 29488, 843-549-5742.
• Beaufort County Detention Center, reached by letter at P.O. Drawer 1228, Beaufort, SC 29901, or at 843-255-5200.
• Allendale County Detention Center. Its Sheriff's Office, P.O. Box 97, Allendale, SC 29810, 803-584-7067, can say where Allendale prisoners are kept.

For a mugshot request, the Sheriff's Office is the place to call. Under the state's open records law (S.C. Code 30-4-30), crime reports are public. So are the names of people held in a jail during the past three months. For a copy of a report or photo, mail a Freedom of Information request to the Sheriff's Office, 411 Cemetery Road, Varnville, SC 29944, 803-914-2200. It must reply in ten business days.

• Did the charge get dropped or end in acquittal? A website showing the photo has to pull it within 30 days of a certified letter. It can't charge a fee (S.C. Code 17-1-60).
• For photos held by immigration, file at the ICE FOIA request page.
• Photos taken by federal agencies stay private, though the Marshals sometimes share one of a wanted fugitive.

Yes. The state's free VINELink South Carolina tells you if someone is locked up right now and at which jail or prison. Look up the name, then register a phone number or email. VINE contacts you when that custody status changes. Prefer to talk to someone? Dial 866-727-2846, in English or Spanish.

Victims use VINE too, but anyone may sign up. Alerts sometimes trail a quick release, so ring the jail at 803-914-2223 before driving over.

Usually within a day. South Carolina gives every arrested person a bond hearing before a magistrate or town judge inside 24 hours (S.C. Code 22-5-510). According to the county, a night booking means seeing the judge the next day, and that court meets 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. every day.

• Personal recognizance means release on a signed promise to come back.
• Cash or surety bonds need the full amount, or a licensed bondsman to stand behind it.
• A murder count, or anything carrying life, sends bond to a circuit judge instead of the magistrate.
• Once the bond is in, release has to follow inside four hours.

Payment, bondsmen and refunds are on our bond and release page.

By the county's account, the officer who arrests someone tells them the charges at booking. Family members can try these:

1. Ring the jail at 803-914-2223 for the charges on the booking record.
2. After a case number exists, look it up on the county's Public Index.
3. Magistrate charges: the Varnville office, 411 Cemetery Road, Varnville, SC 29944, 803-914-2230.
4. Felony charges: the Clerk of Court, 1 Courthouse Square Elm Street, Hampton, SC 29924, 803-914-2250.

Every warrant or ticket lists the offense along with its code section. The court that signed it can give you a copy.

The public defender does. At bond court the person can request a public defender. The 14th Circuit's office for this county sits in the Annex Building, 1 Elm Street West, Hampton, SC 29924, 803-914-2242.

• An application asks about income and household, signed under oath.
• A $40 charge applies, but it can be cut or dropped (S.C. Code 17-3-30).
• Relatives may phone with the name and charge. The case itself is discussed only with the client.

Oversight for every circuit comes from the South Carolina Commission on Indigent Defense, 1330 Lady Street, Suite 401, Columbia, SC 29201, 803-734-1343.

Call the Detention Center at 803-914-2223 for visiting rules before you make the trip to Varnville. Ask about:

• Visiting days, hours and how long each visit runs.
• Whether visits happen in person, on a lobby video screen or on a video app at home.
• Whether visitors sign up ahead or must be on a list.
• Which ID works and what stays in the car.

Kids generally need a parent or guardian along. For general tips, see our visitation page.

Ask the jail at 803-914-2223 how deposits work today. Find out if there's a machine in the Cemetery Road lobby, a website or a phone number, and what each one charges. Copy down the company name the jail gives you, since look-alike sites exist.

Funds on account usually buy hygiene items, extra food and phone time. Our deposit page and commissary page explain the usual setup.

The county says one call is allowed right after booking wraps up. Later calls normally run collect or from a prepaid account, and outsiders can't dial in.

Ask the jail at 803-914-2223 which phone vendor it uses and whether tablets or messaging are offered. Expect each call to be recorded unless it's with an attorney, so warn your loved one to keep case talk off the line. More help: our phone page and messaging page.

Call 803-914-2223 first and confirm the mailing address. Also ask:

• Whether the envelope needs a booking number.
• Whether photos, greeting cards or books can come in, and how books must ship.
• Whether mail is handed over on paper or scanned.

The envelope needs their legal name, plus yours as the sender. Skip glitter, stickers and perfume. Our mail page lists rules many jails share.

Booking staff bag up clothes, phones, keys, wallets and cash, then store it all under the person's name. Most people collect their things on the way out.

Need the car keys or a wallet before then? Call 803-914-2223. A signed release from the inmate may let you take them. Ask about that form, the pickup hours and the ID needed. Bond refunds are a separate matter. The county returns those to the person who paid, with ID, after the case closes.

Under S.C. Code 24-5-80, the county owes every inmate basics such as meals, water, clothes and health care. Intake includes health questions, so your loved one should name every condition and prescription.

• Phone 803-914-2223 and ask for the supervisor on duty. Give the inmate's name, the illness and the doctor's name.
• Ask about medicine from home. Many jails refuse outside pills.
• If the person has talked about suicide, call right away and say that plainly.

Health records are private. Staff need the inmate's signed consent to discuss them.

Deputies and town officers serve warrants here. For a check, call the Sheriff at 803-914-2200 and ask for Records, or look up the person on the Public Index. People who skipped probation or parole are pictured on SCDPPPS's Most Wanted list, and the nation's top fugitives are on the Marshals Service's 15 Most Wanted. Clearing a warrant means getting a lawyer, private or public, and then surrendering with that lawyer at the issuing court. Lots of magistrate warrants come out of Varnville, 411 Cemetery Road, Varnville, SC 29944, 803-914-2230.

Phone the office that owns the file:

• Felonies and General Sessions: Clerk of Court, 1 Courthouse Square Elm Street, Hampton, SC 29924, 803-914-2250.
• Magistrate cases: Varnville at 803-914-2230, or Estill at P.O. Box 969, Estill, SC 29918, 803-625-3232.
• Town court in the county seat: Town Hall, 608 First Street West, Hampton, SC 29924, 803-943-9364.

Hearing dates also show on the Public Index under the case. For the path from bond court to sentence, read our criminal court page.

The county falls in the Beaufort Division. Even so, its federal cases go to Charleston, to the J. Waties Waring Judicial Center, 83 Meeting Street, Charleston, SC 29401, 843-579-1401.

1. A magistrate judge there rules on release versus pretrial jail at the first hearing (18 U.S.C. 3142).
2. Before trial, federal defendants stay in Marshals custody, frequently in a local county jail. Call their Charleston office, 85 Broad Street, Room 260, Charleston, SC 29401, 843-727-4255, to learn which one.
3. Sentenced federal prisoners move to the Bureau of Prisons. Type the name or the eight-digit register number into the BOP inmate locator.

Immigration holds at Cemetery Road go in four steps:

1. First comes paperwork. The detainer, a federal paper called Form I-247A, lands on the Cemetery Road booking desk.
2. With it, ICE asks Cemetery Road to keep the person up to 48 hours after they would otherwise be released (8 CFR 287.7(d)).
3. Agents collect the person and decide where they will be detained. ICE's office for the state is at 3950 Faber Place Drive, North Charleston, SC 29405, 843-746-9800.
4. Find them on the ICE Online Detainee Locator by A-number (on any immigration paperwork), or by name and birth nation.

State law gives jailers 72 hours from a criminal booking to check immigration status, and they must tell Homeland Security about anyone in the country unlawfully (S.C. Code 23-3-1100). When setting bond, the judge considers that status and how likely the person is to run (S.C. Code 22-5-510(D)(4)).

Short sentences, three months or less, are normally served right in Varnville. Anything longer means the South Carolina Department of Corrections, and SCDC decides on the prison.

• New arrivals start with reception and evaluation, where they are tested and classified. Face-to-face visits wait until that's over, unless it lasts past 30 days.
• Each night at midnight, the SCDC inmate search takes a fresh snapshot. County jail inmates don't appear in it.
• SCDC's main office: 4444 Broad River Road, Columbia, SC 29210, 803-896-8500.
• Each prison's visiting hours and mailing address are in our South Carolina prison listings.

Teens normally go through Family Court and the state's juvenile justice agency, DJJ, rather than Cemetery Road. The law caps a child's stay in any adult jail at six hours, and bans it for kids ten and younger (S.C. Code 63-19-820).

• A young person who must be locked up goes to DJJ's Juvenile Detention Complex, 1725 Shivers Road, Columbia, SC 29210, 803-896-9440.
• The county's DJJ office: 1 Courthouse Square Elm St., Hampton, SC 29924, 803-943-4296.
• Family Court clerk: 803-914-2254.

Some 17-year-olds, along with younger teens moved to General Sessions, face the most serious felonies as adults. They may stay at the Varnville jail.

The arrest papers name the agency. If you don't have them, call the Sheriff or the town below.

• Sheriff's Office: Law Enforcement Center, 411 Cemetery Road, Varnville, SC 29944, 803-914-2200. Deputies cover the countryside plus Brunson, Furman, Luray and Scotia, four towns with no department.
• Estill Police Department: 323 Martin L. King, Jr. Blvd S, Estill, SC 29918, 803-625-3699.
• Gifford Police Department: PO Drawer 189, Gifford, SC 29923, 803-625-2712.
• Hampton Police Department: 608 1st Street West, Hampton, SC 29924, 803-943-2421.
• Varnville Police Department: P.O. Box 308, Varnville, SC 29944, 803-943-2979.
• Yemassee Police Department: P.O. Box 577, Yemassee, SC 29945, 843-589-6315.
• SC Highway Patrol, Troop 7: 1391 Middleton Street, Orangeburg, SC 29115, 803-531-6844. Troopers work highway crashes and DUI stops.

The county has no campus police. For non-emergency questions, Central Dispatch picks up at 803-943-9261.